Those Emerald Eyes
by The Not So Diligent Penguin
Summary: It has been more than 10 years since Lily lost her precious son, Harry and 3 years since she began teaching to cope. Lily's peace however, is interrupted when the son of a former friend enrolls at Hogwarts. But is all as it seems? It doesn't appear to be when one young Henry Snape comes to class one day sporting emerald, green eyes much like her own.
1. Those Emerald Eyes

Chapter 1: Green Eyes

Author Note: I do not own anything related to Harry Potter

Lily Evans poured herself another glass of firewhiskey taking a rather long sip. She still had trouble believing it was all over. That Voldemort was dead. It was only six months ago, when the man's corpse had appeared in front of an auror station clearly hit by some rather foul spell and brought about the end of the First Wizarding War of Britain. A war that had dragged on for decades, ended without any explanation or understanding and now, after all this time, the scars of war could heal. But for Lily, the pain was simply too great. She had lost too much and it left her forever changed. Her friends, her family, even her _son_ were lost. She still remembered that day, when everything had gone to hell.

She and her husband James had been in hiding at the time, when news of a major attack reached them. Believing their son would be safe thanks to the FIdelius charm, they made the decision to help especially since the situation had proved so dire.

They had saved many lives that day, but Harry, her son… he was killed, betrayed by someone who her husband trusted like a brother after killing their secret keeper Peter. The event changed her as well as her view of her husband, whose antics had become increasingly unbearable.

And so, she divorced him and fighting for several more years, came to work here at Hogwarts, protecting the students within instead of battling in the field. It was soothing work for the most part save for one problem or rather, one house. House Slytherin. Home to some of the worst of Britain, the fact that Dumbledore allowed the house to exist in its current state bothered her.

One especially troublesome student though, was one Henry Snape. Lily took another sip from her drink. The boy was very much like his father, Severus.

With long, pitch-black hair, pale white skin, and angular features, he looked almost exactly like a young Severus. In fact, the only differences were the perfectly shaped nose and the ice blue eyes that he possessed which made it seem certain that he would be a heartthrob when he got older.

It was the similarities beneath the skin however, that made her truly disturbed. The boy was exceedingly bright like his father and unfortunately, seemed destined to use that gift for the Dark Arts.

If she was in charge, she'd expel him along with all the other Dark Art dealing hellions. Instead, she was expected to teach them like any other. She took another drink, this time downing the entire glass. Class would begin soon she thought bitterly. Quickly casting a sober up charm, she wrote the topic up on the board: "The Levitation Charm". Hopefully they wouldn't bother the Gryffindors too much today.

As the students filed in, she quickly did a mental tally making sure they were all here on time. Counting them, she eventually saw Henry, who had his eyes covered by his extra long bangs today. Eyebrow raised, she watched as they all sat down.

Today would be reasonably straightforward as it was to be there first time channeling their magic into charms and spell itself was reasonably safe with few possibilities for errors.

"So class, today we will be learning the levitation charm, one of the most important and essential spells of this class. Now, remember to move your wands like so."

Lily demonstrated with a graceful 'swish' of her wand. "Now everyone, repeat after me: _Wingardium Leviosa_ "

Soon the class began waving their wands as well, albeit in an imprecise manner compared to her own. All except of course, Henry Snape. He simply leaned his head onto his hand, disinterested as all of the other students struggled.

Lily bit her lip as she saw trying to think of an appropriate response. Given that he was Severus' son, he probably already knew the charm. Still, his lack of respect was wearing thin. Turning to the other students she watched as one red-head seemed to be trying by sheer force of will to lift the feather in front of him by waving his arm around like a maniac. Moving to intervene, she found she didn't have to as the bushy-haired girl next to him grabbed his hand.

"Stop, stop, _stop_ , you're going to put someone's eye out. Besides, you're saying it wrong. It's Levi-O-sa not Levio-SA."

"You do it then, if you're so smart. Go on, go on."

Henry chuckled as he watched the two, his eyes lazily moving to Hermione, a smirk coming onto his face.

" _Wingardium Leviosa_ " Hermionie said before easily lifting the feather and giving Ron a knowing smile.

Ron on the other hand looked like he was fuming. Meanwhile, Henry's chuckling grew louder until it was finally a laugh.

"You think that's funny?"

"I do, Weasley, think twice next time before challenging your betters." Henry responded with an all-too familiar sneer.

"I haven't seen you do it, you weirdo."

Eyebrow arched, Henry waved his wand as the books beside him hovered much to the shock of the whole class that gazed up at the books with wide eyes.

"Heh, know your betters." Henry sneered once more enunciating each word.

"5 points from Slytherin for your attitude Henry." Lily said finally intervening snapping the class back to attention. Internally however, she was trying to keep her shock in check. An eleven year old casting nonverbal spells? Evidently Severus taught the boy well.

Henry rolled his eyes before turning away from her, letting the books drift back into their proper place leaving Lily fuming. This child… was even _worse_ than Severus at that age.

The class continued and aside from a small explosion, everyone eventually managed to lift the feather. As the students filed out, Lily gave another look at Henry, who was last to go, seemingly lost in thought. The boy's stern expressions mirrored Severus' perfectly. It was then that she realized that she needed to dissuade the boy from mimicking his father too well.

"Henry?"

Henry raised an eyebrow and slowly trudged over to her desk. "Yes _?_ "

"So I see that you are already capable of nonverbal spells." Lily said tapping her fingers against the desk, "I'm very impressed."

Lily gave the boy a smile but Henry was unfazed. "Thank you."

"But I was just noticing, that you seem to be rather... aloof."

"I'm fine." Henry said turning his gaze away from her.

Lily however, was unperturbed. "You know," Lily began, letting her heart speak for her, "Severus was also rather distant from those around him. I hope that you can find a better temper than he did."

"I understand Professor." Henry responded, the edges of his lips tugging downward.

Seeing they were done, Henry turned his back to her, bringing his long bangs with it and in that moment, Lily squinted in confusion. For beneath that dark, black curtain, she could have sworn she saw the twinkle of two green emeralds look back.


	2. His Killing Hand

Chapter 2: His Killing Hand

At the Great Hall, Henry debated whether he should continue reading his new book Metamorphmagi and its Variants. On one hand, he was determined to get to the bottom of his recent changes but on the other hand, one of these knuckle-draggers could stain the book and get him into trouble with that angry librarian. Fearing her wrath after that previous incident with the potions Henry put the book away but the questions still lingered.

Grasping a spoon Henry parted his hair to check yet again and sure enough, his eyes were still that strange and hideous green. For the entirety of Henry's life, they had been a deep and lovely blue that perfectly complemented his dark, black hair but suddenly, in the last few days, they changed to green. At first, he thought it was another damned prank from those insufferable Weasley twins but this lacked their usual sadism and stupidity. His studies on the possibility of metamorphmagi also proved inconclusive although Henry had no control other his changes which suggested an alternative explanation. The change was driving him mad and worse, things were still changing!

Henry took a breath and tried to calm down. He was surely just paranoid at this point and his hair turning lighter was probably just a trick of the light. He took another breath. Yes, that was it. He was just overlooking something and this was all easily explained away and everything would go back to normal with his eyes no longer looking quite like that bitch professor's.

Oh how he hated that woman. Professor Evans. Uncle Avery told him all about her and he was absolutely right. She was a self righteous jerk and not only that, she bullied his dad when they were in school with her friends, the so-called marauders. The fact that she even had the audacity to lecture him about his father drove him into a fury.

"Hehe… I hear that mudblood has been sobbing all day down at the girl's bathroom."

Henry turned about looking at a possible target for his anger. It was Draco Malfoy and his cronies, Crabbe and Goyle laughing like idiots.

"I wouldn't talk if I were you." Henry spoke, his hand instinctively reaching towards his wand.

The three of them glared at Henry who matched them with equal intensity.

"What'd you say, Snape?" Draco said standing up, scraping the chair against the stone floor.

"I said," Henry said rising up to Draco's level, "You're all just full of hot piss."

Henry lifted his wand as it released dark purple sparks causing Crabbe and Goyle to lean away from him, eyes widening. Meanwhile, the rest of the house stared intently, hoping for something to happen. And it seemed like it would as Malfoy lifted his own wand.

"A troll in the DUNGEON!"

Henry's gaze immediately shifted to the odd and incompetent Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor tumbling into the great hall panting and wheezing like some cloth tumbleweed. Dumbledore immediately stood up, his face hardening before looking to the professors in the room who stood up as well.

Henry however, was not thinking about them. Instead, he thought of the troll. Hulking creatures of monumental strength, their hides were thick and their wrath fierce, they were dangerous to most wizards.

Henry then turned his gaze back to the Gryffindor table. Hermione was indeed still missing. Henry's eyebrows furrowed as the students were steadily moving off. Knowing where she was, she was in pretty serious danger. Henry turned to the prefect before looking about. Finding Hermione wasn't going to be hard. May as well do it himself. Then maybe he'd get some respect around here.

Slowing down, Henry made his way to the back of the group before finding a fork to split off. Today was proving quite interesting.

* * *

Or not.

Henry found himself outside of the girl's bathroom, sniffles barely audible when he pressed his ear to the wooden door. Looking around him at the dank, damp stone dungeon hearing nothing but the dripping of water, Henry sighed.

"Hey! Miss! Are you listening?"

Henry debated for a few seconds as he stared at the door. Was opening the door to be heard technically entering the girl's bathroom? Then again, it was an emergency. But what if she was naked or something? But why would a girl be naked? Henry shook these thoughts from his head before trying again.

"HEEEY!" Henry said banging on the door hard enough to hurt his small fists.

"... Go away." She replied in a whisper.

Henry threw his hands in the air. "Are you serious?" He banged once more, "Stop moping and get out! There's a troll somewhere!"

Still more sobbing. Henry groaned as he leaned back. What the hell was this girl's…

Thump.

Henry stiffened as he turned.

Thump.

Henry turned. Trolls were stupid but evidently not deaf. Its shadow slowly appeared around the corner as the creature stepped into view. It was bigger than he expected. Its head nearly reached tall ceiling of the dungeon and its hide was almost stone-like in appearance. Henry grit his teeth.

The creature, seeing fresh meat, salivated a green drool before licking its lips before charging like a rhino, its sheer size causing the ground to quake.

 _Rictusempra!_ Henry shouted as magic gathered itself into his arm before shooting out at the creature's large belly impacting with light blue sparks. Henry wobbled back

The troll, feeling the effects of the laughing jinx, stifled a loud chuckle before tripping, tumbling and rolling like a massive boulder down the hallway forcing Henry to hug the wall as it careened past and collapsed in a heap closeby.

Moving closer to the hulking beast, Henry tilted his head to the side. It was ugly up close but not just because it was troll. It looked like the creature had been badly mistreated, with its scars all over the body. Did someone torture this thing?

As Henry was looking at the creature however, the troll stirred and while trolls have limited intelligence, they _did_ have excellent hearing. Bringing its large arm up, the troll made for a swift backhand, sending Henry straight into a wall as it rose up seething. Henry choked a bit on the ground from the pain as his stomach did flips making him throw up a little in his mouth. Thank heavens Henry didn't eat much at supper. Staggering up, Henry found his vision slightly blurry.

Thump… thump…

The troll took lumbering step after lumbering step as it sought to regain momentum forcing Henry to try something else.

 _Flippendo!_

The knockback hex, normally sending people flying barely budged the troll who then grabbed the injured boy with its monstrous immediately putting the boy in a vice grip. It lunged grabbing Henry by the waist squeezing him tightly. Henry could feel his ribs getting crushed and based on the look of the troll, he had only one chance. He had to try _that_.

The spell he saw his father use that day. One that he had, as of yet, been unable to use. It was now or never.

Henry lifted his wand doing the motion, doing his best to keep his hand steady through the pain.

 _Sectumsempra!_

* * *

Lily raced down the halls towards the screaming, heart racing. Soon after another scream pierced the moist, cold air, this one much deeper and more guttural. She was close. Rounding the corner into the hallway, Lily's mouth opened in horror. For there, right in front of her was Henry, standing next to a thoroughly disemboweled troll, its blood spilling and covering almost everything, Henry included. What disturbed her most though was that Henry was laughing. He was soaking in black, troll blood and _laughing_.

"I… am… amazing…"

As he did so, Henry's knees slowly gave out collapsing with a 'splat' on the viscous black floor causing Lily to rush over to him. Picking him up, Lily gazed at the troll, still twitching before gazing back at the boy.

This child was some kind of monster...


	3. His Poor Way with People

Chapter 3: His poor way with people

Scratch, scratch, scratch…

Tap, tap, tap…

Henry frowned as he gazed at his papers. This was not what he had been expecting when he had recovered from his injuries. Instead of receiving praise for his clearly heroic deeds he was instead given detention! The nerve of those prissy Gryffindors! And he knew, he knew it was that jerk face Evan's doing. Probably some malarkey about "dark arts" blah, blah, blah. The whole thing made him seethe especially now that she was in charge of detention. And worse, she just left! Probably to… do… stupid Gryffindor things... yeah.

"Hey, uhm… I"

Oh right, and he was also stuck with that crybaby girl. Such is the burden of genius, to be surrounded by lessers. She apparently was to share detention with him, something that Evans was clearly unhappy about.

Henry took a deep breath, "Yes?"

"Well… I just wanted to say… sorry about-"

"Don't worry about it. For someone as amazing as myself, such things are trivial." Henry said trying to act as tough and nonchalant as possible, "In fact, perhaps I should _thank_ you for giving me such an opportunity to once again prove my superiority with such a banal… nuisance if you will."

Hermione raised an eyebrow. "Okaaay. Weren't you hospitalized for a week?"

"A minor detail. The point is a slew a troll with a single spell. A secret, powerful spell that has been passed down the Snape family for generations."

"Right." Hermione said almost rolling her eyes before recomposing herself, "I guess it was pretty cool."

"But of course I… huh?"

"I mean, it was pretty cool that you beat a troll. I suppose. I mean, I am curious how you did it."

"Oh?" Henry said ears visibly perking up.

"But if it's some big secret then I guess that's that." Hermione said before slowly returning to her book.

"Well," Henry stammered, "I mean, if you are so interested I suppose I could tell you _some_ details of my exploits."

Now, if young Hermione had been a tad more mature and more socially aware, she might have seen the clearly expectant look in Henry's eyes as he asked. But alas, she did not.

Hermione shrugged a little as she tilted her head just a smidge to the left, "I su-"

"Then listen well for I shall not repeat myself." Henry said putting a hand up to silence Hermione whose eyes widened in astonishment.

"There I was, facing down the troll, his massive size easily dwarfing any mountain."

"That's a bit mu-"

And then he swung left, and I ducked right, as the wind from his strike would send any other flying. But I stood my ground firing off a spell right into his gut as he howled in pain.

"Did it?"

Henry ignored her. "In rage, the creature bellowed and swung again! But I was ready, and that was when I unleashed my full dark power and… BOOM!"

Henry used his hands to simulate an explosion with the last part as Hermione merely blinked.

It was at that moment that Henry realized that he might have gone a tad too far.

"So… what spell did you use?" Hermione asked.

Henry paused. He wasn't sure he wanted to tell just anyone this spell.

"I mean, this is like, you know, powerful magic. I'm sure it's something a girl like yourself wouldn't."

" _Excuse me!_ And what's wrong with being a girl?" Hermione said, her voice taking on an edge.

"Nothing!" Henry said quickly throwing his hands up defensively. "It's just, you know… some magic is 'kapow!' And 'bang!' And cool stuff. And you know, for you, maybe you want something more like… 'sparkle sparkle'..."

Hermione almost gaped in shock before turning furious, her face scrunching up like she had eaten a lemon, "You… YOU SLYTHERIN!"

"Whoa what!?" Henry said confused at the sudden hostility to what he knew was an exceptionally polite answer, "What in blazes does that mean!?"

"You Slytherins are all so… arrogant! And racist! And judgmental! Thinking you're better than everyone because of being a boy… or being mudblood or something stupid!"

"What, I don't judge anybody like that! And those kinds of words are beneath me! And I don't think I'm better than anyone because of blood or being a boy. I just _am_ clearly better than everyone!"

Hermione groaned, "Whatever."

Henry huffed through his nostrils, "I'll prove it!"

Grabbing Hermione's papers Henry quickly scanned through it. "Ha, mandrake root!? What a waste when you can use something as common as grave moss!"

"Mandrake root is faster! And it gives you more time to put in the other ingredients!"

"…Really? I mean, uhm… so what!?"

"So it's clearly better!"

"Nuh uh!"

"Uh… Huh! And you know what, you probably have dozens of mistakes!"

"I challenge you to find but one!"

Hermione grabbed his papers and started rifling through but as the seconds turned to minutes, Henry's leer gave way to a victorious grin.

"Ha, I simply cannot stop being-"

"Here."

Hermione presented Henry with a page of his writing. "You spelled "Bezoar" wrong! Multiple times!"

Henry's eyes widened for a brief second before turning smug once more, "That is the… the Arabic spelling, also known as the better way to spell it."

"Really?" Hermione asked incredulously.

"Of course" Henry said using as much of his bluffing skills as he could muster which thankfully worked in this situation.

"Hmmm…" Hermione scratched her chin, "There's a dictionary somewhere around here let me-"

"In any case," Henry said with a cough and a bit of sputter, "Clearly you have some skill I must admit. Though you are still a distant fourth."

Hermione opened her mouth but decided that that was probably the best she was getting from him and decided to let the conversation move elsewhere, "Fourth?"

"Well obviously, I am third" Henry, "And my father is second and Merlin himself is first."

"Merlin?" Hermione asked, "I heard of him."

"I should hope so." Henry said ruffling his robes, "He's only the greatest wizard the world has ever seen."

"More than Dumbledore?"

"More than a million Dumbledores!" Henry said throwing his arms up, "He saved the Wizarding and muggle world from destruction and worked to bring Avalon to this world."

Seeing Hermione's confused look Henry dug out an old and worn out book from his pack.

"Avalon is a dream. A dream where everyone, wizard, muggles and all magical creatures can live together equally and in harmony. Where everyone can be whatever the best they can be without being judged. In fact, his vision and his skills as a wizard is the reason I chose to be in Slytherin."

"Really?" Hermione asked incredulously, "A Sly- He believed that? Even muggleborns?"

"Yes, in fact he tried to rid the wizarding world of such words."

"Oh… that sounds… nice." Hermione said, "Can I see?"

"Henry narrowed his eyes, "For a little bit. But this book is mine. You should get your own from the library if you want to read it."

Hermione took the book to look at it. "You know. When I first started wizarding school, I was really happy. But… on the bus… I met some other girls and at first they were nice… until they realized that I was…"

Hermione trailed off. But Henry knew. "Are they all in Slytherin?"

"Most of them. But one is in Gryffindor. And to top it all off apparently there has been a war going on with people wanting to exterminate people like me."

"Yes. I know. The wizarding world sucks. Almost as much as the muggle world."

"The muggle world isn't so bad. We at least have equality and freedom."

"I lived in the muggle world too." Henry argued, "Can't say I agree. But that's the way the world is. For now. As Merlin said, 'Mere wand waving won't fix it.'"

A peeling bell rang through the halls signaling that their detention was over and supper had begun.

"Anyways, those purebloods are always spouting nonsense. Just ignore it."

"It really doesn't bother you that I'm muggleborn?"

"It means nothing to me." Henry said with immediately, "Anyways, see you later. I guess."

Hermione nodded. "Later."

The two scurried about collecting their things before leaving and as they closed the door behind them, a figure materialized. Taking a step forward Lily gazed at the door.

"Doesn't matter…" Lily whispered.

How strange for the son of a Death Eater to say. A ruse perhaps?

AN: Hello everyone, sorry for the really late update. This chapter was a real struggle for me mostly because I wanted to try and show Henry as more of an ambitious dreamer and child. I will probably make edits as it does feel incomplete in a lot of ways. Please review.


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